I am an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering national and Minnesota politics, political fact-checking, health care, and public policy.

I have an extensive background in radio and print reporting, and a talent for explaining complicated ideas to a general audience.

For five years I worked for Minnesota Public Radio Newswhere I pioneered PoliGraph, a fact-checking feature that gets behind the spin in Minnesota politics. I contributed to MPR's coverage of the federal health care overhaul, and carved out a niche beat on campaign finance, mysterious political donors and the influence of money on elections and public policy.

I love to write and report, but I'm also a policy wonk; in 2011, I earned my Master's degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

I worked for PolitiFact, where I specialized in scrutinizing claims about health care and climate change. I cut my teeth as a reporter at Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C., where I covered the U.S. Senate, the 2008 presidential election and agricultural policy.

I'm originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, home of the best collegiate basketball team in the country, and I completed my undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in Ohio. Unfortunately, those four years in the Midwest were poor preparation for Minnesota's winters, which I'm still learning to love through cross-country skiing and good humor.